Fukuyama Origins Of Political Order Epub Download: The Paths That Different Societies Have Taken to

What is unique about Fukuyama's book is the amount of time he spends grounded in the philosophy and psychology of the issue, eventually proving the inherently political nature of identity. He begins by establishing that the inner self is based on dignity, and that dignity seeks and desires recognition. Self-esteem comes from outside recognition, and as such, identity is inseparable from identity politics because in order for one to feel as though his or her identity is dignified and valid, others have to value and acknowledge it. Fukuyama cites philosopher Hegel, arguing that the struggle for recognition drives all of human history. In order to accurately unpack historical events and phenomena such as revolutions, nationalism, and Islamism, we need a better theory on the human soul. Here, Fukuyama looks to Plato's Republic and engages the concept of the "third part of the soul" to explain identity politics and allegedly irrational or unpredicted behavior. Isothymia, the desire for one's identity to be recognized by those around oneself as equal to everyone else, drives democracy. Megalothymia, however, is the need for one's identity to be recognized as better or more deserving than others. Modern democracy reflects the replacement of megalothymia with isothymia. During massive changes in history in which social caste and social structure became less pressing definitions of one's idea, people had to answer the question of their own identity outside social structure, and this ignited the [End Page 160] need for recognition and dignity, leading to democracy and the overthrow of aristocracy.

This report explores how a nuclear-armed Iran would behave, if it would act aggressively, and what this would entail for the United States and its main regional allies, including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Israel. The Islamic Republic seeks to undermine what it perceives to be the American-dominated order in the Middle East and to deter a U.S. and/or Israeli military attack, but it does not have territorial ambitions and does not seek to invade, conquer, or occupy other nations. Nuclear arms are unlikely to change its fundamental interests and strategies. Rather, they would probably reinforce Iran's traditional national security objectives. The ideological beliefs of the Iranian political elite will not shape the country's nuclear decisionmaking. The regional geopolitical environment and Iran's political, military, and economic capabilities will have a greater bearing on Iranian calculations. It is very unlikely that Iran would use nuclear weapons against another Muslim state or against Israel, given the latter's overwhelming conventional and nuclear military superiority. Further, the Iranian government does not use terrorism for ideological reasons. Instead, Iran's support for terrorism is motivated by cost and benefit calculations, with the aims of maintaining deterrence and preserving or expanding its influence in the Middle East. An inadvertent or accidental nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran is a dangerous possibility, but there is not much evidence to suggest that rogue elements could have easy access to Iranian nuclear weapons.

Fukuyama Origins Of Political Order Epub Download

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Khanna is nothing if not ambitious...The expression a young man in a hurry'' was made for him...While his contemporaries busied themselves with macroeconomics, democratic peace theory or counterinsurgency doctrine, Khanna was devouring such dusty old tomes as Toynbee's 12-volume A Study of History and the geopolitical theories of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman. I can think of much worse preliminary reading for a world tour....The best thing about The Second World is that it takes us to a whole series of important places we might be disinclined to visit for ourselves and gives us glimpses of life on that messy borderland between the second world and the first. There are some wonderful vignettes: the gleaming statue of Bruce Lee in Mostar; the mis-spelling of the word bank'' on Kazakhstan's 2006 banknotes; the uneasy ethnic mix in Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley; the narcotecture'' along the road from Kabul to Herat. Khanna is especially good on pipelines, the vital conduits of imperial energy, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, for example, or the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. Highways, tunnels, bridges, refineries, canals and liquid natural gas terminals also catch his eye. And he has a keen eye for the new acronyms of which we shall doubtless hear much more in the future such as SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). It is this kind of thing that lends credibility to his case for relative American decline and rapid Chinese advance. There seems little doubt that Beijing is doing a much better job than Washington of cultivating second world energy exporters. And in a world where economic growth is out-stripping fossil fuel production, that may well pay off in future. 2ff7e9595c